A Tramper's Journal

2009-09-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

Why do we leave this world and those left to suffer in it?
Maybe when I breathe my last breath, the world will cease to suffer.
Who can recite from experience what occurs after death, either in this world of terra firma, or the world of spirits?
The dead hold secrets, as do the living. Perhaps the two could strike a deal, but would they?
Most do not even think of it. Nor would they ever.
Civilization whirs. It pants, but strains still to run.
There is little time to think of striking a morbid deal, or to even consider what happens when a strain of a pitiful pant does so for the last time.
It is said: 'only the physical body remains'. Is that so?
'It is folly to questions such', quothe others. Is that so?
Folly is rarely the result of questions if the questioner is a seeker too.

2009-09-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it would be only right, my thoughts shot at me later, to at least sit and partake of some Chinese.
Lonely souls, full of goodness, traces of hurt, can only participate in the social activity of eating so many times in solitude.
When else is he alone? Perhpas he enjoys people watching, sitting in his own silence.

Perhaps.

But he once asked me after a rather enthralling lecture of British Literature whether I would go out to dinner. The manner was respectful, reflecting his character predictably. Yet he asked for more than I wished, rather an abrubt invatation as we had never spoken more than miniature conversations at a time. Despite a clear decline on such a official occasion, I suggested we may sometime share a smoothie in the pavillion- in my eyes a much more casual "expectation free" event.
And yet I still feel a pang of sorrow, mercy, though I could not define what for the numerous times I spot him at his lonely table, partaking of nourishment, observing the action of oblivious flitting souls.
We may meet eyes from a distance and smile, not different from the days of British Literature.

False Comfort

2009-09-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

I do not taste it,
I do not savor this,
My being feels it,
I do not,
I run,
It nudges me,
I interrogate,
It gives me voice,
The rain pelts,
It shields me,
O you false comfort,
What would life be without you

Can They Survive Too?

2009-04-19T21:45:00.001-07:00

The economy is hitting tough times and so are the people living in it. Depending on everyday decisions and choices, the blow can be lessened.
Students are finding creative and practical ways to be frugal. Some students have mastered the art of frugality from day one, and are merely continuing the practice. Others are now learning in these tougher times, and finding it is not so miserable.
Alexi Treu, age 20, sophomore at Hillsdale College spoke of ways he saves money. “We drink water and we only drink from the tap….we “steal” fruit from the cafeteria. We buy off brands… I stock up and buy cans three cans of peanut butter. Then when I don’t eat at the cafeteria I‘ll eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. “
Treu says, “We cook veggies together, a little meat and pasta, all cheap groceries. I am frugal which is why I am sound financially.” Treu is one of these students that have made a habit of living frugally, even before college. So this comes natural for him.
“Even if the economy was booming I would save a lot of money because this is how I always live”.
Tara, Treu’s girlfriend, 20, and also a sophomore at Hillsdale, wished her last name to remain anonymous. She spoke of her vegetarian diet. “Being a vegetarian is very economical. Any time I go out to dinner, vegetarian meals are always cheaper than ones with meat.” Tara made a connection between her veggie choices and medical bills. “The other thing about being vegetarian is it cuts down on doctors bills, because you’re a much healthier person. My immune system is much stronger, and I don’t need to buy medicine for colds and spend money at the doctor.”
Tara gave an example of creativity in gift giving. “I definitely put a lot of caring into a blanket I made for my boyfriend. I went to the craft store and found inexpensive fleece, and I spent more time, which was worth it, but cheap.”
A freshman at Mott Community College in Flint, Marlee Rogers, age 20, speaks of her frugal habits. “I don’t carry a lot of spending money, and when I do, I don’t spend in on the Bistro, Mott’s restaurant... I know a lot of people eat out, and that is a major cost even if you do dollar menus.”
Rogers also stated “I have always been one not to spend much.” For instance, “on a shirt I would not spend more than $20. Garage sales are nice because you can make money having them and save money shopping at them.” For birthdays and such occasions, Rogers said, “We always make cards instead of buying them.”
Rogers plans on transferring to University of Michigan- Flint but will attend Mott to save money until it is necessary to transfer. Rogers also lives at home, which is an additional way she saves money.
The Goodwill, a non -profit charity supported organization has been affected in a different way. Calvin Mabery, a Goodwill Industries employee spoke of the effect the economy is having on customer traffic.
“A lot more college people are coming this year,” Mabery said. “People that would not normally shop here are coming. We’ve got clothes that you all people would wear- people don’t know. We’ve got clothes like Abercrombie.”
Mabery also stated he has noticed more students from Mott, Kettering, U of M-Flint, and Baker taking advantage of the Goodwill recently. “They need clothes too you know, and they can’t go buy clothes from JC- Penney all the time.” According to Mabery, donations have gone down, but the change is not significant.
Students have always been known for frugal habits cutting extravagant costs, but now the need is heightening to a necessity as the squeeze for money tightens further. Surviving in tough times is an opportunity for creative juices to come out. It is in these times that everyone realized it is possible to survive, even thrive, with very little.

2008-10-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

Last time you heard from me I was in New York City. Wall Street was alive and happily kicking. Really, I saw it. Then tragedy struck. Having received its rather large antibiotic stab though, it might show its perky little face. On the other hand, come to find out, antibiotics don’t cure, they just cover the symptoms. Then they kill the good, innocent cells. Ask your doctor.

Journalism is a stealthy beast. It shows its face even when it was deliberately put on the back burner. Leaving it in NYC is not an option. It won’t leave me alone. That’s ok with me as long as there aren’t too many important men parading around in stuffy suits. Of course, my brother is a journalist on Capitol Hill, and he parades around in a stuffy suit, but its different, because he mourns the fact, not revels in it. And besides, the stuffy suited people he interviews on the Hill won’t listen to him unless he has a stuffy suit too. It’s all rather ridiculous. And yet, they are making our laws right? I'm sure they mean well.

KEN AND ACOULA

2008-06-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

It’s funny what made the biggest impressions in my young life. He was my clay teacher. Went every week to these clay lessons. This may seem insignificant to some, but I’ll always remember him and his wife. He had long dark brown hair and sat in a wheelchair. He'd been in a motorcycle accident. A hippy all the way. Ken. That’s his name. Stamped with tattoos head to toe, and earrings too. He also had a wife. She had long blonde, stringy hair that made me think of spaghetti. Ken and Acoula.
I suppose we all thought they were a bit odd. He always bragged about his car held together with duck tape. He claimed all the girls would wave as he passed.
He said they had a pond in the middle of their kitchen. He said it with such confidence. That really impressed me. I was nine. It was strange but cool. Clay class became more than just molding clay. It was a time to wonder and imagine in the world of Ken and Acoula. Ken and Acoula taught me that being a little “strange” is ok sometimes.
Today I am 20 years old. I still think about Ken and Acoula. Even now I imagine Ken and Acoula swimming in their kitchen pond. Maybe even with fish. I wonder how they are today. I wonder how Ken’s duct taped car is faring. I remember to stay a few inches out of the stifling boxes in which life sedates unimaginative minds.

2008-06-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

My own poetry will one day be on this blog, but for now, here is another's I admire.

a Jewish American poet, Emma Lazarus, wrote this poem which is carved on Lady Liberty's pedestal. Her passionate work also made it possible for the building of the pedestal.

A reflection of our country or not, the poems remains.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.“
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

2008-05-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

I admire the messenger cyclists of New York City. We’re all desperately trying to make our way around in this world, and NYC cyclists are just another one of the crowd in the big impersonal streets of NYC, specifically to the taxi drivers. The taxi drivers take great freedoms to infringe on the cyclists lanes. There seems to be a general attitude around here that whatever “I” am doing is more important than what “you” are doing.
In fact, just yesterday I was contentedly browsing through books at Borders using some precious minutes of freedom. Out of nowhere, a lady attempted to shove me aside with her elbow.
Actually, she succeeded, because she was bigger than me.
My curiosity was roused more than anything, so I watched her. Come to find out she was in a painful hurry to see a long lost friend. I suppose that was more important than me and my book which I was merely browsing through.

My Borders experience may seem like an irrelevant tangent, but it relates. Speaking to the cyclists, I discovered within this humble job, very humble people who are not ashamed of their “errand boy” style job, but rather generally enjoy and embrace it; not to mention, depend on it. I observed the hardships messenger cyclists face- being criticized for weaving in and out of traffic. But in reality, their “safety area” designated by the law is really not available, since the taxis use it to their advantage. What are they expected to do? They need the money as much as the taxi drivers, though they are smaller and much more vulnerable. The taxis dominate NYC streets. The bicyclists survive, barely. Each one must provide food for his person, and perhaps family. But who's got more freedom? It’s the bigger guy who defines it.
Sometimes the governement is the taxi, the people the cyclists.

2008-05-17T22:59:00.001-07:00

NewYorkCity

My stare fixed dismally on the ceaseless rainfall as unlucky pedestrians without umbrellas scuttled the streets.

I took another bite of my Boca burger disregarding a William Faulkner book on my lap which contributed to my dreary thoughts. What was the alternative? Would I rather be with my friends standing in line, in the rain, the entire night, banking on the slight possibility of obtaining tickets to Saturday Night Live show? Not really.

Those of us not standing in the rain were ogling stupidly at our computer screens accomplishing absolutely nothing. I couldn’t decide which was more unprofitable.

Maybe McCain would win the nomination and I’d lament not shaking his hand forever, but so far I planned on losing no sleep over my nerdy decision to stay back and read Faulkner. And call me a sour grape, but Steve Carell is not hot.

I didn’t mention the small minority of girls clustered around a minuscule laptop uttering hideous screeching sounds at The Office, all of which I pretended to ignore. They had the nerve to invade my apartment and bring with them those nasty little cherry m&m’s, which are a shame to the complete m&m industry.

In the end I went to Star bucks and sipped a chai tea latte like a snooty little New Yorker, but I didn’t quite pull it off with the flip flop fashion, even if they were Chaco’s. They weren’t five inch heels with wicked witch tips, or baby doll ballerina shoes which tend to fill with polluted water every time you step in a puddle.

Here you are, but take your Chacos and find the Beverly Hillbillies of New York City. We’ll all be happier if you and your little hick shoes find somewhere else to go.

2008-05-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families... “The killers killed all day…at night they…went out to feast” (Phillip Gourevitch)

It was April 1994.

While Americans were soaking in the juice of the OJ Simpson trial, the UN was losing ground and fleeing a country on the brink of genocide.

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families is an in depth investigation not only covering the annihilation of 800,00 lives in Rwanda Africa but also the destruction of trust families and allies alike.

Phillip Gourevitch stuns readers with a detailed history of power struggles between Rwanda’s Hutsis and Tutsis, resulting in hate, murder, and eventually genocide… this while the UN slowly backed out, barren of sufficient support to intercede. Gourevitch reveals heroes, tyrants, victims and data, and countless interviews. This was an event not silent to the ears of surrounding powerful countries. The message was not silent, but the message was ominously silenced.
This story of genocide within three month’s time is a story to the world, told too late, but not without a message. Why Rwanda’s plea for mercy was treated with almost indifferent attitudes is an unanswered question. Let us try to assume other events were happening in these powerful countries which prioritized over hundred thousands of lives.

Appallingly, there is little evidence for such a case. The world stood by.

There is a pleasure in telling a tragic tale. Ignorance among media is rarely absent after the bloody fact. Of course, the headlines never would have had such a "scoop" if the plea for help were heeded. Maybe OJ Simpson would have presided the US headlines one more day.

Someone Get Sinatra a Tissue

2008-05-16T10:03:00.001-07:00

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, an article well worth reading, contains touches of humor and lightheartedness, while filled with detailed examples from Sinatra’s prime time. The writer of this article, Gay Talese, portrays Sinatra as a hero, which unarguably, to a large percentage of Americans, he was.
Focusing on the influence and fame Sinatra incited through his music and personality, criticism is few and far between. Though Talese also touched on less desirable characteristics of Sinatra such as his questionable moral choices and bouts of sudden anger and conceit, the piece is written so the reader may easily be charmed by Sinatra’s person. Synopses like these give ample room to overlook fault.
Talese focuses on the idea that Sinatra depended on his voice for his fame. To lose this aspect of himself would be to lose his fame. To lose his fame would be to lose his grip on the world, and his grip on the world would mean to lose power. Sinatra’s dependence on his voice for his contentedness reflects similar attitudes in today's culture. Fame and popularity is too often based on outward offerings of show and talent, while personality, character, and inner strength are ignored. One's honesty and dependability is not what makes a person. Rather the accumulated attention from performance defines value.

The respect paid to today's heroes utterly ignores personal respect, and morals, rather absorbing with pure pleasure the glorifying yet shameful details beneath the original talent. What happens when Sinatra gets a cold? The beauty fades and the sight is ugly. Someone get Sinatra a tissue!